Asia

2012

Dear Prime Minister: The International Fact Finding and Advocacy Media Mission to Nepal that met with you in February has finished its review of specific provisions from the country's draft constitution that the Constituent Assembly will finalize by May 28. As one of the groups on the mission, the Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to encourage the assembly to incorporate the group's recommended changes before the constitution is finalized. The review and recommendations pertain to freedom of expression, the right to information, and freedom of the press.

April 6, 2012 12:08 PM ET

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New York, April 4, 2012--Police in eastern Nepal must fully
investigate Tuesday night's murder of a TV and newspaper reporter and determine
whether the motive was related to his journalism, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today.

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Given that it is usually punishable by death, "treason" is a
dangerous word to bandy about. When it is applied to journalists, it is even
more worrisome. We've seen that in Sri Lanka, which is in the throes of a
backlash against a U.N. resolution on past human rights abuses. (See "Amid
Sri Lankan denial, threats rise for journalists.") Photographs of
journalists who have been critical of Colombo, their faces barely obscured, have
been shown on television; one broadcast even repeatedly used the picture of a
journalist's daughter, according to the Network for Rights media support
group.

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New York, April 2, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists
is concerned by Chinese authorities' recent clampdown on the Internet after
rumors circulated about politician Bo Xilai's
dismissal from the Communist Party leadership in
Chongqing. In recent days, authorities have shut down several microblog
sites and detained and targeted Internet users.

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On March 29, 2012, Tran Thi Thuy Lieu was convicted of the
murder of her husband, journalist Le Hoang Hung,
after a one-day trial in southern Long An province. Hung died January 30, 2011,
after he was set ablaze while sleeping in his home in Tan An, news reports
said. Reports said Lieu, who had suffered gambling losses, was motivated by her
husband's refusal to sell their home.

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New York, March 30, 2012--Authorities in Chongqing must
clarify the status of a journalist who reports say was secretly sentenced to
prison in 2010 for criticizing a government official in a personal blog, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ has not been able to
independently confirm the journalist's jail sentence or his whereabouts.

Just ahead of this weekend's highly anticipated Burma
by-elections, opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi today denounced
the vote as not "free and fair." Indeed, Thein Sein government's
harassment of opposition media in the run-up to the polls raises disturbing
questions about the country's reputed new democratic direction after decades of
repressive military rule.

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New Delhi-based Tehelka
weekly news magazine has published a scathing
indictment of the police investigation into the 2011 killing of Mumbai
crime reporter Jyotirmoy
Dey--and of the Indian media's coverage of it. Beneath the allegations
and the rumors, we still don't know exactly why he was killed, while the
self-confessed mastermind is a fugitive from justice. Meanwhile, a second
journalist has been indicted for the crime on apparently flimsy evidence.

The investigation into the notorious murder of muckraking
Philippine journalist Marlene
Garcia-Esperat in Mindanao is now seven
years old. A separate hunt for conspirators in the January 2011 killing of
Palawan radio journalist Gerardo
Ortega is just getting started. The Regional Trial Court in Puerto Princesa
City issued arrest warrants against three suspects in the Ortega case on
Tuesday, and one has been arrested, according to the local Center for Media
Freedom and Responsibility. But both cases should already have been solved.